This summer, they decided to paint the frames black, which cost $900. Mr. Sievers, a special-education teacher, and his wife, a doctor, could have done the work themselves, a solution that do-it-yourself enthusiasts would suggest. But the doors face the street, and the couple wanted the end result to look polished. “My dad and my uncle used to always do home repairs and everything used to come out uneven or crooked,” Mr. Sievers said. So he paid a professional. Tired of listening to those cabinet doors bang shut? Peel-and-stick door and drawer bumpers are the solution. Get a pack of 20 at a home center for a few dollars. Make sure the back of the door is clean so the bumpers will stick, then place one at the top corner and another at the bottom. Plus: Keep your kitchen (and whole house!) clean with these 100 brilliant cleaning hacks.
How to DIY it: This job can be messy, so protect nearby surfaces by covering them with plastic or cardboard. Spray the springs with garage door lubricant (about $7 at home centers). Don’t use oil, grease, or other lubricants. They may be cheaper, or you may have them on hand already, but they won’t work as well and tend to pick up dust and grit—just what you don’t want on moving parts. There's no national standard or regulation for handymen. Licensing and regulation vary by state. New Jersey, for example, requires handymen who work for a profit to register with the state and carry insurance. California requires handymen to carry a license from the State Contractors License Board to work on any project that exceeds $500 in labor and material costs. Find out before you hire the handyman if he or she has the skills needed to complete your project.

How to DIY it: Coils are located on the back of the refrigerator or across the bottom. Pull the fridge away from the wall. (Hint: Grab the sides and pull from the bottom. You may want to lay cardboard on the floor first to prevent scratching.) Clean coils with a coil-cleaning brush (about $10 at home centers), then vacuum. Do this every six months or so.

In 2009, there were national handyman service firms which handle such nationwide tasks as public relations, marketing, advertising, and signage, but sell specific territories to franchise owners. A franchise contract typically gives a franchise owner the exclusive right to take service calls within a given geographical area. The websites of these firms put possible customers in touch with local owners, which have handymen and trucks. Customers call the local numbers. Typically these firms charge around $100/hour, although fees vary by locality and time of year. In many parts of the world, there are professional handyman firms that do small home or commercial projects which claim possible advantages such as having workers who are insured and licensed. Their branch offices schedule service appointments for full-time and part-time handymen to visit and make repairs, and sometimes coordinate with sub-contractors. When vinyl windows and doors don’t operate smoothly, it’s usually because gunk has built up in the channels. But sometimes even clean windows and doors can bind. Try spraying dry PTFE spray lubricant on the contact points and wiping it off with a rag. Don’t use oil lubricants; they can attract dirt, and some can damage the vinyl. Make sure to keep your windows clean all year long with these pro tips.
Franchise handyman firms sometimes pitch clients by asking prospective customers about their unresolved "to-do lists".[16] The firm does odd jobs, carpentry, and repairs.[16] Trends such as a "poverty of time" and a "glut of unhandy husbands" has spurred the business.[16] Technicians do a range of services including tile work, painting, and wallpapering.[17] "One firm" charges $88 per hour.[16] The firm targets a work category which full-fledged remodelers and contractors find unprofitable.[16] A consumer was quoted by a reporter explaining the decision to hire one firm: "'I couldn't find anyone to come in and help me because the jobs were too small', said Meg Beck of Huntington, who needed some painting and carpentry done. She turned to one franchise firm and said she liked the fact that the service has well-marked trucks and uniformed technicians and that a dispatcher called with the names of the crew before they showed up."[16] There are indications that these businesses are growing.[16] There are different firms operating.[12][18]
Generally the job of paid handyman is low status, a semi-skilled labor job. It's a less prestigious occupation than a specialist such as a plumber, electrician, or carpenter. With the emergence of large national chains, an effort is being made to change that perception, by emphasizing professionalism and the fact that a handyman is actually a technician with multiple skills and a wide range of knowledge. At the same time, unpaid homeowners skilled at repairs are valued for saving money. And handyman tools sometimes become useful in different places: for example, when a proper neurological drill was not available, an Australian doctor used a handyman's drill in 2009 to open a hole in the head of a 13-year-old boy to relieve pressure after a brain injury; the boy's life was saved.[11] Avoid companies that require large deposits or payment in advance. If your job requires a lot of materials, and the company is responsible for buying them, it’s reasonable for it to ask you to put up a deposit against these expenses. Otherwise, arrange to pay for all work only when the job is done. This arrangement gives you leverage in making sure the work is done properly, and it’s another reason why a fixed-price arrangement works in your favor: A set fee means a company can’t charge for additional hours if it has to take extra time to correct errors. You’ve got an ever increasing to-do list of home improvements like changing out a bathroom faucet, replacing missing shingles on the roof and painting a kitchen wall. You could hire a plumber, roofer and painter who have conflicting schedules and their own service charges, or you could hire a handyman to complete all three projects in one day for one hourly rate. How to DIY it: This job can be messy, so protect nearby surfaces by covering them with plastic or cardboard. Spray the springs with garage door lubricant (about $7 at home centers). Don’t use oil, grease, or other lubricants. They may be cheaper, or you may have them on hand already, but they won’t work as well and tend to pick up dust and grit—just what you don’t want on moving parts. Everyone has a different skill set, and not everyone was put on this planet with the same aptitude for manual labor. And that’s okay! Whatever your needs, the Handy platform can connect you with the right professionals who won’t be daunted by your task, whatever it might be. Whether you need help with a door that won’t close, a squeaky hinge, drywall repair, or fixing a broken table leg, we’ve got you covered. You can’t go wrong with Handy—let us connect you with a top-rated handyman with the right skills for your job.

Need your garage door repaired? Odds are, once you account for materials, labor and unforeseen hiccups, you’ll be writing a check for a grand. Your sump pump died? A new one could cost you around $600 for parts and labor, which doesn’t seem so bad considering the alternative is a flooded basement. But then the plumber might discover that the pipe carrying the water from the house to the street is clogged with years’ of debris and needs to be flushed out. And maybe there’s a blockage somewhere. There you have it: $1,000.

If you have a wallpaper seam that’s coming apart, reactivate the paste around the gap with a rag soaked in warm water. Hold the rag over the area for a minute or two, and then carefully open the gap a little larger so you’ll have more room for the sealer. Squeeze seam sealer (white glue works in a pinch) into the gap, and press the paper to the wall with a roller. Clean off the excess sealer with a sponge.
How to DIY it: There are lots of ways to clear a drain, so start with the easiest one. If your sink has a pop-up stopper, remove that and clean it. If that doesn’t do the trick, fill the sink with 3 or 4 inches of water and use a plunger to plunge the sink (plug the overflow hole with a wet rag first). Still slow? Try snaking the drain pipe with a metal hanger or a pipe-cleaning tool (sold at hardware stores for about $2).

Depending on where you live, national averages can seem like a steal. Rene Artale’s four-bedroom house near Newcastle, in Westchester County, N.Y., suffered some damage during a storm last winter. A tree fell in the yard, damaging her fence, arbor and retaining wall. And heavy snow caused her roof to leak. The repair bills just kept piling up. Removing the tree, $3,800. Repairing the wall, $4,000. Fixing the roof, $3,800. Fixing the picket fence, $2,800. “It’s obscene,” Ms. Artale, 47, said.

Hi reader in the U.S., it seems you use Wikipedia a lot; that's great! It's a little awkward to ask, but this New Year's Eve we need your help. We depend on donations averaging about $16.36. But 98% of our readers in the U.S. are ignoring our messages, and there are only a few hours left in 2018 to help Wikipedia. If you donate just $2.75, the price of your coffee, Wikipedia could thrive. Thank you.

How to DIY it: Turn it off by opening the disconnect box (typically located on the outside wall near the unit) and pulling out the disconnect block inside (above). Now take a good look at the unit. If the vents are caked with fuzz from dandelions or cottonwood trees, vacuum the vents. Then rinse the unit with a hose using moderate pressure (the flimsy fins might bend under strong pressure). As you spray, peer down into the unit. You should see water streaming through. If not, the fins are still clogged, so keep rinsing.

Some see a benefit of franchising as "entrepreneurship under the safety net of a tried-and-true business umbrella"[15] but forecast a 1.2 percent decrease in franchise businesses during the 2008-2009 recession.[15] In 2005, according to a survey released by the Washington-based International Franchise Association showed 909,000 franchised establishments in the United States employing some 11 million people.[15] Franchises offer training, advertising and information technology support, lower procurement costs and access to a network of established operators.[15]

This master bath had a few likeable options. Heated tile floors, done by Gabriel tile, Moen U connect faucet that runs via your phone app, double vanity, extra outlet on the right side, humidity sensing fan to eliminate mold and mildew build up. Paint by Father & Son Painting, electrical was LED and done by Heimlich Electric. All plumbing fixtures were Moen, toilet by Kohler. As a homeowner, your greatest fear is that some unnoticed issue — a clogged gutter, a cracked foundation or a leaky roof — will snowball into a catastrophic fail that costs you thousands of dollars. Lucky for us, we invested in a home warranty that covers most of the major homeowning headaches, but not all of them. The ceiling leak is paid for, but if something goes wrong with the sewer line or air conditioner unit outside, that's our problem. Our big, expensive problem.

If you find that drawer slides are bent, rollers are broken or rollers won’t turn even after lubricating, replacement is the best solution. To keep the project simple, buy new slides that are identical (or almost identical) to the old ones. That way, replacement is an easy matter of unscrewing the old and screwing on the new. Remove a drawer track and a cabinet track and take them shopping with you. Learn how to build an under-cabinet drawer here.

Upholstery shops charge almost $200 to fix tears in your seats. You can do it yourself in a few hours with a vinyl and leather repair kit (less than $20) from any auto parts store. You’ll have to practice a bit to get the right color mix and it might not be a perfect match when you’re done, but it’s a heck of a lot better than driving around with torn seats. Start by gluing reinforcing fabric onto the underside of the torn vinyl or leather. Then mix the heat-set filler to match your fabric color and apply it to the tear. Next, find a textured mat that most closely resembles the texture of your vinyl or leather and place it onto the liquid filler. Heat the patching tool with a clothes iron and press it onto the textured mat. Remove the patching tool, but leave the textured mat in place until the patch cools. Then peel it off. Get the full story on repairing leather here.